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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29058708">Paradox, Born and Bred</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/revision/pseuds/revision'>revision</a>, <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/rumioki/pseuds/rumioki'>rumioki</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Missing the Void and Other Perpetual Disappointments [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Original Work</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-04-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 07:54:02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>16,072</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29058708</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/revision/pseuds/revision, https://archiveofourown.org/users/rumioki/pseuds/rumioki</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>When the universe finally stops being sucked through his skull with a silly straw, Kingsley’s lying spread-eagled on the ground with a hunk of concrete digging into the small of his back. That wouldn’t have been so much of a problem, had it not been for the very small foot planted in the center of his chest.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Original Female Character &amp; Original Male Character, Original Male Character &amp; Original Male Character</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Missing the Void and Other Perpetual Disappointments [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2097927</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. 2.0</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This will all eventually lead to something (maybe).</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When the universe finally stops being sucked through his skull with a silly straw, Kingsley’s lying spread-eagled on the ground with a hunk of concrete digging into the small of his back. That wouldn’t have been so much of a problem, had it not been for the very small foot planted in the center of his chest.</p><p>The foot was connected to a kid that looked remarkably like one of his best friends compressed into a pint-sized mass of terror, but every ounce of logic in his body sang that it couldn’t be, because:</p>
<ol>
<li>His friend was his own goddamn age.</li>
<li>He’d been missing, presumed dead for just shy of five years.</li>
</ol><p>They both were.</p><p>But then again, he’d seen a lot of weird things in the last three years of his life, and some kind of cloning situation where a balls off the walls Jason 2.0 was cooked up wouldn’t entirely be out of the realm of possibility. The other option was a deaging situation, but given that there <em> wasn’t </em> a Jason to deage anymore, Kingsley highly doubted that that particular brand of sticky fingered mad scientist had anything to do with it.</p><p>It really didn’t matter either way, because regardless of how they got to that point, it didn’t change the fact that <em> a </em>kid was pressing down harder and harder against his sternum the longer he lay there like a beached starfish, and it didn’t look like he had any plans on letting him up anytime soon.</p><p>“Who are you?” Jason 2.0 spat, “Where the fuck did you come from? Where were you hiding? What group of whack jobs do you work for?”</p><p>“What?” Kingsley wheezed like a deflating balloon.</p><p>The foot somehow grew denser, “Who. Do. You. Work. For?” Jason 2.0 asked, eyes red-rimmed and wild around the edges. </p><p>He grew closer and closer with every word until he was essentially nose-to-nose with Kingsley, snarling into his face. Sometimes, kids looked cute when they were angry. But not this kid. There was a rabid energy to him that booted Kingsley’s instincts into overdrive, letting him know very, <em>very </em> clearly that if he so much as twitched an unexpected muscle, a bruised sternum would be the last thing he’d have to worry about.</p><p>“I’m not working for anybody,” Kingsley said, proud of the fact that his voice wasn’t five octaves higher than usual—only two, “I don’t know how I got here, and I don’t work for anyone, honest.”</p><p>“You’re lying,” Jason 2.0 immediately accused, lips curling up to reveal a row of teeth with the fourth one missing, “You’re fucking lying to me, and I hate liars. So let’s try this again, ok? <em> Who do you work for? </em>”</p><p>“Did you pick up that line from a movie, kid?” Kingsley asked, hysteria cracking his tone because what was this kid, some kind of mob boss? “Who’s letting you watch movies like that at your age, Jesus H. Christ.”</p><p>Jason 2.0 let out an impatient sort of snort and drew back, much to Kingsley’s relief, though the weight against his chest remained unchanged.</p><p>He turned to his left and slightly over his shoulder, the frown on his face etching years onto the boy, “Ars!” He called out, “I can’t question him here, he’s not saying shit.”</p><p>Kingsley winced as the boy shifted his weight to dig into the deep pockets of his army green cargo pants. He pulled out a flip phone—and who the hell had flip phones anymore?—and waved someone closer with it.</p><p>The hand that reached out to take it was even <em> smaller </em> than Jason 2.0's, and a short Asian girl stepped into his eyeline, an equally impressive scowl on her face as the little Terminator above him. She let out an annoyed breath, ruffling the strands of hair that hung into her eyes before roughly pushing them up and away from her face.</p><p>“Call Nana,” Jason 2.0 said, but Kingsley barely registered his words, too busy gaping at the little girl.</p><p>Because that was Arri.</p><p>He hadn’t seen it at first glance, because he’d never seen her with her hair that long before, nor with unruly <em> bangs</em>, but it was undoubtedly the other side of the dynamic duo that made up his best friends—<em>Arri </em>.</p><p>Arri, who scowled down at him as she violently pressed the keypad of the phone before bringing it to her ear. </p><p>The ringing was deafening in the silence that followed, before Arri 2.0—because she <em> had </em> to also be some kind of fucked up second generation version, chirruped, “Hi Nana! No, no, we’re fine. But Jason and I were playing in the neighborhood when we found this guy. We think he’s been following us or something—no, he’s got the guy pinned.”</p><p>There was a beat of silence and Arri’s glare intensified into a threat, “No, he’s not fighting or anything. But he came out of nowhere, and he won’t fess up.”</p><p>Kingsley couldn’t hear anything from the other end of the phone, but Arri 2.0 said a few uh-huhs and yeahs before she said, “Ok, thanks Nana! We’re by the gas station with the deli. We’ll wait—yeah? Okay! Bye, see you soon!”</p><p>She snapped the phone closed and any semblance of sweetness dropped like a ten ton brick of concrete, “She’s coming to pick <em> all </em> of us up,” she said, pointedly emphasizing the ‘all’. Then her voice lit up again, “Oh, and she said she’s got lasagna in the oven for dinner.”</p><p>“Oh, good,” Jason 2.0 said, and it was tripping him out that they were holding a conversation like this was any other day while standing over him, “I wanted lasagna since last Wednesday.”</p><p>“Me too,” Arri 2.0 agreed as she squatted down to peer at him, “Why aren’t you fighting him?”</p><p>“Huh?” Kingsley asked, wondering if it was possible to physically get whiplash from the direction of a conversation, “What?”</p><p>“You’re all grown,” Arri 2.0 pointed out, like it was possible he hadn’t noticed it himself, “So why aren’t you trying to throw him off?”</p><p>Kingsley expected Jason 2.0 to protest, but the boy only shrugged as if she had a valid point and looked down at him expectantly.</p><p>“Because he’s a <em> kid </em>?” Kingsley said, voice crawling higher and higher with each word, “And I don’t want to hurt him?”</p><p>Arri’s frown turned from Jack Nicholson to quizzical, “You’ve got some weird hangups,” she said, and shifted to properly sit down and cross her legs, “You’re not even gonna try?”</p><p>“No!”</p><p>She shrugged as if <em> he </em> was the one being unreasonable, “What’s your name?”</p><p>“K—” Kingsley started, then because at least a <em>few</em> of the ‘uncharted territory’ lessons had stuck around for it to be useful, changed tracks and said, “Kevin.”</p><p>“Kevin,” Arri 2.0 repeated, sounding out the name, “Kevin. Ok, Kevin. You know we’ll let you go if you tell us the truth right, Kevin?”</p><p>“I <em> am </em> telling the truth!”</p><p>Arri 2.0 sighed and tilted her head up to look at Jason 2.0, who gave a minute shake of his head in return.</p><p>“Alright, I guess we’re waiting for Nana then, Kevin,” Arri 2.0 said, and she somehow sounded genuinely disappointed in him. Jason let out an almost imperceptible sigh from above them, and Arri 2.0 opened up the phone again and held it out to him.</p><p>“Wanna play Tetris?”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Nana</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He had a lot of time to wonder who ‘Nana’ was while the 2.0 versions of his best friends sat on his chest and legs and played Tetris in silence. It was weird.</p><p>‘Nana’ <em> had </em> to be code for their handler or something, because there was no way that any organization would let the recreated tiny terrors run around without <em> some </em> kind of supervision. He didn’t know if the fact that they readily called her was a good or bad thing, since the Arri and Jason <em> he </em> knew were notoriously suspicious bastards that only trusted on the business end of a gun. They had to be extremely close to anyone they trusted enough to call for help, and that could mean a multitude of things.</p><p>Kingsley had his money on brainwashing.</p><p>Which, obviously, didn’t bode well for him.</p><p>Because grown-up Jason could snap a person's neck without so much as blinking, and judging by the pressure that had been on his chest, Kingsley was willing to bet that it wouldn't be a major problem for Jason 2.0 either. And because brainwashed little kids were never a good thing.</p><p>He realized as the kids perked up at the sound of a car parking at the entrance of the alleyway that he maybe should have been planning his escape. <em> His </em> Arri and Jason's disappointment was palpable from an entirely different dimension, and he couldn't blame them. They’d always been better at compartmentalizing than he had but it was too late to beat himself up over dumb decisions.</p><p>Kingsley strained his head to try and get a glimpse of the woman who got the kids perking up like a pair of well-trained puppies. And, well, he supposed ‘Nana’ was a pretty accurate alias for the woman.</p><p>She was an older lady with a face that suggested she could be kind, with fine laughter lines at the corners of her eyes, though she was far from laughing. Her face could have been chiseled out of stone for the amount of expression she had as she stared down at him, but Kingsley personally knew that this wasn’t her natural state, because he’d seen that face crinkled in deep amusement several times growing up as well.</p><p>This woman, without a doubt, was actually Jason’s Nana.</p><p>Which presented another issue entirely.</p><p>If something smelled like an apple, tasted like an apple, and felt like an apple, but you <em> knew </em> it wasn’t an apple, was it, or wasn’t it an apple? Because Kingsley knew pretty well why someone would want to clone Jason and understood it to <em> some </em> extent the point of cloning Arri, especially if someone thought that her abilities had been there since birth. But—and to no offense to Jason’s Nana, because she was a formidable woman who raised Jason and Arri with an unparalleled elegance—there was no tactical advantage to cloning Jason’s Nana. Which meant that there was a very good possibility that this was <em> a </em> version of an original flavor Arri and Jason.</p><p>He should have been excited, because dimension hopping had been the goal that landed him under a child supersoldier in the first place, but it was hard to feel anything other than pants-shitting fear in the face of three people that hated him to the point where he could taste it in the air. Especially when two were willing and perfectly able to tear him apart limb from limb.</p><p>“Are you sure you’re not making a mistake?” Jason’s Nana sighed, “He looks a little young to be…”</p><p>“What normal person wears body armor?” Jason shot back, rapping his knuckles against the fiber mesh beneath Kingsley’s clothes. It was designed to be invisible to an untrained eye beneath loose-fitting clothing, but it was still a hard material and Jason’s hand thudded against it.</p><p>The woman’s eyes narrowed slightly before she held out a hand to pull Arri up from his legs and Jason leaped up as well. Kingsley only had a second to consider getting up and running before Jason reached down and hauled him up by the collar of his shirt. He flailed against the kid’s hold, but Jason didn’t so much as flinch.</p><p>“We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” he said in a voice that wasn’t threatening at <em> all</em>, even though he was clearly trying to be, because he couldn’t have been any older than ten. And because Kingsley didn’t want to fight a literal <em> child </em> and because it wasn’t as if he had anything better to do (he didn’t even know how he got there in the first place), he staggered to his feet and motioned for the three to lead the way.</p><p>He’s sat in the back with Arri, who’s sprawled out and taking up a little over two seats, even though she’s hardly big enough to take up one. It’s no mystery why she’s the one sitting in the back, even though Jason’s the one with super strength. They know that if he does decide to try and fight his way out, he could kill her and it wouldn’t matter. Tactically, it makes sense.</p><p>It still makes him sick to his stomach.</p><p>They don’t drive for long before Jason’s Nana pulls into a driveway and yep, that’s Jason’s house as he remembers it, alright. Kingsley tried to see the bright side of it all—at least he knew his targeting was in the right ballpark, because he hadn’t been expecting to land anywhere near Arri and Jason on his first shot. He hadn’t even expected to <em> go </em> anywhere if he was being completely honest, but the tiny versions of Jason and Arri proved that he’d managed… a lot, actually.</p><p>It didn’t change the fact that Arri kicked his shins as he tried to duck out of the car and Jason was by his side before he could blink and man-handled him towards the shed in the back.</p><p>If his great rescue journey ended up in a bullet between his eyes in some dingy wooden shed in his <em> best friend’s </em> backyard, he’d be pissed.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Shed</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The shed was stripped bare save for a metal pole that ran from the ceiling to the ground and was buried in a circle of concrete. Jason’s Nana went directly into the house, leaving him to be marched into the shed by two children. Kingsley wanted to bury his face into a pillow and scream, just a little bit.</p><p>“You’re weirdly calm,” Jason commented as Arri handed him a pair of handcuffs and he shackled Kingsley’s wrists together against the pole, “You’ve got backup coming, don’t you.”</p><p>“No,” Kingsley said slowly, “I just don’t want to hurt you guys.”</p><p>He was taken aback by the amount of derision in Jason’s snort, “You can’t hurt us,” he said, “But you already know that—don’t bullshit us.”</p><p>“Just because <em> she </em> can’t die and <em> your </em> injuries don’t stick around, doesn’t mean that I can’t hurt you,” Kingsley said, momentarily forgetting that he was supposed to be pretending that he didn't know anything about them in his outrage, “And I don’t want to hurt you.”</p><p>Jason’s face went through a confusing series of emotions before he settled on a blank glare, “Ars was right,” he said, “You’ve got some weird hangups for a guy in the business of kidnapping children.”</p><p>“I’m not—”</p><p>But Jason had already whirled away and stomped  out the door before he could properly defend himself.</p><p>Arri, though—Arri stuck around. She settled herself by the door, just out of reach if he stretched his legs out, and crossed her arms across her chest, propping them up against her knees as she stared him down. He could see the face she’d grow into beneath the chubby cheeks, eyes that were too big for her face and weirdly proportioned forehead and the longer he stared back, the more she morphed into his Arri.</p><p>He couldn’t take sitting in silence in front of her any longer.</p><p>“So…” Kingsley started, and she glared at him as if this wasn’t how their interactions were supposed to go.</p><p>Well, tough.</p><p>“What’s your name?” Kingsley asked in the tone that was usually reserved for his nephews when he had to pretend to be interested in whatever game they were playing. Friendly and polite, with a little bit of reluctance.</p><p>“Why’d you want to know?” Arri asked. Her fingers dug into the meat of her biceps, “Don’t you have that all written down in a file somewhere?”</p><p>“<em>No</em>,” Kingsley emphasized, “Because I don’t have any fu-fricking dossiers on you two or anything like that, and I’m not <em> working </em> for anyone.”</p><p>Arri looked faintly amused, “You can say fuck, you know,” she said, “I’ve heard worse.”</p><p>“I try not to make a habit of cursing in front of kids,” Kingsley said drily, “How old are you anyways?”</p><p>“Are you trying to interrogate me?” Arri shot back, “If you are, you’re <em> really </em> bad at hiding it.”</p><p>“No,” Kingsley said, just barely keeping himself from being short with her, “I’m just trying to have a conversation.”</p><p>“Am I pissing you off?” Arri asked, a shark grin across her face, “I haven’t even said anything yet.”</p><p>“Is this what you do?” Kingsley asked, “Stick around and try to piss people off into saying something?”</p><p>Arri shrugged, “I’m annoying,” she said, very matter-of-factly, “Dumb people kill me to get me to shut up. Smart people just give me what I want.”</p><p>“Jesus,” Kingsley muttered to himself, her words reaching into his chest and <em> twisting</em>. He raised his voice to ask, “And what is it that you want from me?”</p><p>“I haven’t made up my mind yet,” Arri said. She’d started to rub the sleeve of her t-shirt between her fingers at some point, and now she was twisting her index finger up in it, “You’re a lot different from the others,” she said, “You struggle a lot less, so.”</p><p>“Not much I can do,” Kingsley pointed out, “And this isn’t so bad.”</p><p>Arri’s face screwed up slightly, “You won’t be saying that in a little bit,” she said, “We didn’t bring you back here for no reason, you know that, right?”</p><p>“What?” Kingsley said, “Wait, <em> what</em>?” He tried to raise his hands without thinking and winced at the bite of metal against his wrists, “Are you saying that your grandma’s going to <em> torture </em> me?”</p><p>“What?” Arri said with equal incredulity, “No! Nana hates seeing blood—she once had to sit down and take really deep breaths just cause Jason skinned his knee and bled all over the place. It didn’t even scar, but it freaked her out anyways.”</p><p>Kingsley bit back the wave of nausea that crawled up his throat, “So your friend’s going to—”</p><p>“<em>No</em>,” Arri said, wrinkling her nose in annoyance, “It’s <em> my </em> job. He would, but it gives him crazy nightmares, and I don’t really care about things like that,” she shrugged like that answered everything, “So I do it.”</p><p>It took a second for her words to sink in, but once they did, Kingsley couldn’t stop himself from a violent string of curses bursting past his lips. He couldn’t remember what <em> he’d </em> been doing at her age, but it sure as fuck hadn’t been torturing people for information—information he knew could be the only thing that kept her and Jason safe for another day. He was out having a childhood, because that was what she was—a <em> child</em>. </p><p>But instead of running around and learning how to ride a bike or something, she was locked in a shed with an adult man she didn’t know and was convinced would kill her on a whim, talking about torture like it was an everyday facet of life.</p><p>Kingsley wanted to violently rip something apart.</p><p>“I thought you didn’t curse in front of kids,” Arri said with the face of a cat that caught the canary, “Are you scared now?”</p><p>“No,” Kingsley snarled, “I’m fucking <em> livid</em>.”</p><p>Arri blinked, “Why?” She asked, “Cause you’re realizing you should have at least tried to run away earlier?”</p><p>“No!” Kingsley said, barely keeping himself from yelling at her in frustration.</p><p>If there was one thing he was certain about, it was that this wasn’t Arri’s fault,  and he didn’t want her to think that he was angry at <em> her</em>. “Because you’re a <em> kid</em>, and you shouldn’t have to do anything like that! How many times have you done this kind of thing so far?”</p><p>He prayed that she’d say that it was her first time—that this was some kind of ‘worst case scenario’ discussion that they've had and was reluctantly coming into play now, though he knew that his hopes were pretty unfounded.</p><p>As expected, she narrowed her eyes at him and said, “Enough to know what I’m doing, if that’s what you’re asking,” she huffed and pushed her hair out of her face, “I don’t know, only one time back here, but like out on the run or whatever,” she shrugged, “A couple of times.”</p><p>“Jesus fucking christ,” Kingsley said, “<em>Jesus fucking christ.</em>”</p><p>Arri continued to stare at him like she was trying to puzzle him apart while he seethed in silence after his outburst. </p><p>He had to be in a different dimension. He <em> had </em> to be, because he refused to even entertain the idea that his Arri went through anything close to what this Arri threw out so nonchalantly. She couldn’t have, because this kind of thing was bound to fuck up a kid at some kind of fundamental level and sure, Arri was just as paranoid and annoying about keeping a low profile as Jason, but she wasn’t anything like <em> this</em>.</p><p>But even if this wasn’t his Arri, he couldn’t just leave <em>an </em>Arri to keep going thinking that this kind of treatment and life was acceptable. He never thought that anything could make him put bringing Jason and Arri back from that rip in space on the backburner, but this took the cake for No. 1 immediate priority.</p><p>“You’re fucking weird,” Arri finally said. She stretched out her legs and leaned against the door in a more comfortable position. Kingsley hadn’t noticed how tense she’d been holding herself until she let it drain away, no longer coiled to spring up and launch herself at something at the drop of a hat.</p><p>It made him want to foam at the mouth.</p><p>She hesitated for a second before she said, “I’m Arri,” she worried her lip, “My friends call me Ars—or at least Jason does. I don’t know if anyone else would want to call me that. I turn ten in August.”</p><p>Kingsley took a few deep breaths to calm himself down, “Thank you, Arri,” he said, “It’s a very nice name.”</p><p>Arri shrugged, “It’s alright.”</p><p>“Would you like me to call you Ars?”</p><p>“We’re not friends.”</p><p>Kingsley sighed, "Fair enough."</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Ice Fishing</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Kingsley felt like they had what his parents liked to call a 'breakthrough moment', but as soon as he tried to make further conversation than her name and age, Arri clammed right back up. He didn't know why he was surprised—god knows she'd been cagey and antagonistic the entire time. But he couldn't help but feel disappointed because he really thought they were getting somewhere with each other.</p><p>But the second he asked, "So, how do you feel about all this?" She might as well have been the rocks at Stonehenge for all she divulged.</p><p>The pointed glare returned because right, they weren’t <em> friends</em>, and Kingsley was condemned to sitting in silence once again.</p><p>Thankfully, he didn’t have to wait long before there was the telltale rattle of a lock and chain against the door. Arri sprang to her feet as the door swung open, revealing Jason standing in the doorway with the lock in hand. </p><p>He passed it over to her with a small smile, “Nana saved the pieces without ricotta,” Jason said, “You’re wrong, but she saved it anyways.”</p><p>Arri wrinkled her nose as she took the lock and chain, seemingly forgetting entirely about Kingsley’s presence there in front of Jason, “I’m not wrong—ricotta’s gross,” she said, “You don’t get an opinion. You’ll eat anything.”</p><p>“So will you,” Jason pointed out with a roll of his eyes, “I’ve seen you eat cranberries.”</p><p>“But I won’t eat ricotta,” Arri sing-songed as she closed the door, “So you’re nasty.”</p><p>“I’m gonna tell Nana not to give you anything,” Jason said as Arri cackled and slammed it closed the rest of the way and the rattle of locks echoed through the wood again.</p><p>Jason’s face fell immediately  as he turned to face Kingsley and he took up the same post as Arri before him. Somehow, he knew that Jason would be more of a pain in the ass to talk to than Arri. Ask him how.</p><p>The kid didn’t even seem to actually see that he was in front of him, his eyes going glazed and unfocused the second he settled himself in. Kingsley knew better than to trust that he wasn’t paying attention to his surroundings after the drastic change in the way Arri had held herself once she actually relaxed, and if this Jason was like the one he knew, he was Arri dialed up to a thousand.</p><p>“You don’t have to do this, you know.” Kingsley tried with Jason as well and watched, fascinated as something seemed to come back online behind his eyes.</p><p>He didn’t get a reply back. Just some more of that creepy staring.</p><p>Jesus, he didn’t know where the light was coming from to glint off of his eerily blue eyes like that because the only window in the shed was barely a slit to let in fresh air and definitely didn’t let in enough light for the kid to be so fucking creepy.</p><p>When he’d first met Jason in middle school, he <em> had </em> noticed that the two kids sitting together in the corner of the cafeteria were given a good ten foot radius around them, and he’d thought that that was a little weird, but there hadn’t been anything immediately off-putting about them when he gathered up the courage to approach them. It had even ended up as one of the best decisions he’d made in his life.</p><p>But this kid: he had the eyes of someone that’d tear out your spleen with his teeth if it suited him. And you wouldn’t be able to judge if it’d suit him until it was too late and he was rummaging somewhere behind your kidney with a blank expression all the while. It made the hairs on his arms stand on end and Kingsley just wanted the boy to stop <em> looking </em> at him like that.</p><p>Like he was a specimen under the slide of a microscope.</p><p>It was easy to feel bad and want to rage against the world for Arri. She still <em> looked </em> like a kid that was trapped in circumstances beyond her imaginations and certainly beyond her control. But there was something crucial missing in Jason. Even if he tried to not let it sway his opinion of the kid, because he <em> was </em> the same age as Arri going through the same things, he couldn’t help but be repelled from the idea.</p><p>When he didn’t say anything else, Jason’s gaze seemed to drift away again, effectively dismissing Kingsley from his concerns.</p><p>He tried the same tactic as he did with Arri, because he didn’t really have any other options kicking around in his head, “What’s your name?”</p><p>Kingsley swore he could almost hear the boot up noise as Jason’s eyes locked on him again. After a long, contemplative pause, Jason <em> finally </em> opened his mouth and said short and clipped, “You already know.”</p><p>“No?”</p><p>Jason leveled him with a look that clearly said he wasn’t impressed in the slightest, “Funny, that.”</p><p>“I really don’t know what you mean, bud.”</p><p>The kid narrowed his eyes like he was trying to figure out if Kingsley was being deliberately obtuse, “You know what we can do, but not our names?” Jason snorted, “Why don’t I believe that at all?”</p><p>“Ah,” Kingsley said with a wince, “Right.”</p><p>A harrowing, hollow grin that was more a baring of his teeth stretched across Jason’s face and Kingsley had to suppress a shiver that ran through him.</p><p>“Okay, I’ll be honest, I do know your names.” Kingsley said carefully to a small noise in the back of Jason’s throat that could roughly translate to ‘no shit’.</p><p>“I just thought it’d be polite to ask instead of assuming.”</p><p>Jason rolled his eyes slightly and yeah, Kingsley figured that was fair. It was a weak defense, even to his ears.</p><p>“That doesn’t mean that I’m working with anyone to kidnap you or something,” Kingsley said, trying to sound as convincing as he could, “I just have… some outside information that’s kind of relevant to you and Arri.”</p><p>He didn’t miss the way Jason bristled when Arri’s name left his mouth and he noted it. Whether it was a point he wanted to press his knuckles down on or avoid altogether, he wasn’t entirely sure yet.</p><p>“Tell me what.”</p><p>Kingsley weighed the costs versus the benefits to telling Jason the truth or shutting up, because lying wasn’t an option. He wouldn’t be able to think of a viable excuse had he <em> not </em> been under the pressure of a small, crazy-eyed murderer, and his brain was basically shutting down in front of Jason.</p><p>Although Jason played all his cards so close to himself he might as well have chewed them up and swallowed them, maybe, just <em> maybe</em>, he’d reward honesty with a bit of trust.</p><p>“This’ll sound insane,” Kingsley warned.</p><p>Jason raised a pointed eyebrow and looked down at himself, and Kingsley couldn’t help but laugh.</p><p>“Alright, but don’t say I didn’t warn you,” he said, gnawing the inside of his lower lip to work out exactly how he wanted to word this for the kid.</p><p>“I’m a dimensional traveler,” He started and had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep himself from grinning when Jason’s expression morphed to incredulous puzzlement, making him actually look like the kid he was for a split second. He looked like he wanted to say something against him, but thought better of it and held his tongue.</p><p>“In my dimension, you and Arri also exist,” he said, “But you guys are around my age and we’ve been friends for a <em> very </em> long time.” He picked the pad of his thumb with a nail, guilt crawling up his throat at the thought, “Something happened and they got trapped in another dimension—I’ve been trying to look for them.”</p><p>Jason blurted out, “That doesn’t explain why you’re <em> here</em>.”</p><p>Kingsley laughed a hollow, broken thing, “I’m not a good dimensional traveler,” he said, “I’m lucky that I even landed near a <em> version </em> of you and her.”</p><p>“Huh.” Jason said, and then didn’t grace Kingsley with any further insights.</p><p>Kingsley sank back with a heavy sigh, closed his eyes, and thudded his head against the pole behind him. As expected, it had been an exercise in increasingly frustrating futility.</p><p>He didn’t try to make conversation again until he heard the rattling of the lock and chain against the door again. Jason was on his feet before Kingsley could even open his eyes to see who was coming in, and he had to admit that that in itself was spine-chilling and impressive at the same time.</p><p>Arri cracked the door open and poked her head in, “Nana says it’s time to come in,” she said and Jason gave her a short nod in return. He cast one last inscrutable look over his shoulder at Kingsley before he slipped out and the door was locked again.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Ravel</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It took Kingsley a good minute to wriggle himself around the pole so he was facing the slit towards the back of the shed. That narrow access to the outside world was the only thing he had to keep track of some kind of passage of time, and he’d need it for the rudimentary plan he had in mind to escape from the shed. Just because he wanted to save these kids from themselves or something, didn’t mean that he was willing to roll over and be <em> tortured </em> by one of them.</p><p>Escape first, contact later.</p><p>He couldn’t be sure about anything with this Arri and Jason, but he was willing to bet that Jason’s Nana expected him in bed and Arri home by nightfall. The shed only grew darker as the hours slowly ticked by and Kingsley couldn’t stop himself from getting increasingly restless. But he forced himself to sit still and wait.</p><p>Good things came to those who waited, or so the saying went, and Kingsley really needed a few good things in his life.</p><p>Eventually, <em> excruciatingly </em> gradually, the sun fully set and the shed was plunged into pitch darkness. Once he was sure his eyes had adjusted as best they could, he started counting to a thousand for good measure, just to be safe. But he lost count halfway and decided fuck it—if they hadn’t barged in to check on him by now, he’d assume they hadn’t planned on keeping tabs on him through the night anyways.</p><p>Though their paranoia in this world was a major pain in his ass, his Arri and Jason’s paranoia was finally coming to good use. At some point, when he’d still been making tentative noises about joining FOIL, Jason had raided his closet of all his sweaters and sewn in durable, but flexible and thin lengths of wire into the cuffs of his clothes. He had just stood by and watched with disgruntled amusement because he knew that there was no convincing Jason otherwise when he got like that and then never bothered to pick apart the perfect stitches to get rid of the pieces of metal once he was done. </p><p>It never came up again and Kingsley promptly forgot about it because he had never really lived in scenarios of ‘just in cases’, and he hardly ever noticed they were there. But he sent a prayer of thanks to wherever that high-strung bastard was now for his aggressive foresight.</p><p>He tugged at the stitches with his nails until the thread unraveled and he felt metal under his fingertips. Kingsley pulled it free, careful not to drop it. There was another one sewn into his other cuff, but he’d need that one to act as the tension wrench when he picked the lock on the outside. From what he saw, the lock was nothing but a simple padlock, and he could pick those in his sleep. But he couldn’t do anything if he dropped it and couldn’t find it in the darkness.</p><p>Once again, he had Jason and Arri to thank for the fact that he knew how to wriggle the wire around to slip it into the lock until he heard the handcuffs click and open with a soft pop. They’d practiced it nearly everyday in middle school and Kingsley had thought it was pretty cool at first—he had felt like he was training to be a secret agent or something, but it grew old pretty quick. And after it got old, they pushed him even <em> harder</em>. It hadn’t been entirely miserable because Jason and Arri were practicing the same, but it was never really any fun.</p><p>He supposed fun didn’t really matter since the cuffs slid off his wrists and he could pull his hands in front of him and stretch. Kingsley wanted to take a second to get his arms back in order, but he could <em> feel </em> Arri and Jason yelling at him that every wasted second was a skew in probability against him. So he forced himself to his feet and stumbled to the front of the shed, unraveling the other side of his cuff. If he pressed his entire weight against the door, it left enough of a crack for him to slide his hands through and he blindly felt around until he found the keyhole.</p><p>It took a few minutes of pants-shitting fear while he worked at the lock before it finally fell away with a sharp clank and the chains rattled to the ground. Every muscle in his body instantly tensed at the noise, amplified to an unbelievable level in the stillness of the night. But he had to keep moving, because who knew what he summoned with the ruckus.</p><p>Kingsley pushed open the door and squinted out into the night, rubbing his wrists as he stepped out with a relieved sigh when he saw the coast was clear.</p><p>The soft click echoed through the night as a death knell.</p><p>“I’d get back in there if I were you,” Jason’s hushed voice came from somewhere to his right and when he turned his head, the first thing he saw was the glint of the gun pointed straight at his forehead. And then there were two pairs of eyes blinking owlishly at him as he gaped back, unsure if he wanted to keep his eyes on the fucking <em> gun </em> or the <em> child </em> holding said gun.</p><p>“Don’t you have school in the morning?” Kingsley asked, because yes, it was a genius idea to antagonize the crazy-eyed kid with live ammunition.</p><p>“It’s summer vacation.”</p><p>“Aw, shit.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Guts</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Had he been Arri or Jason, or even had the unthinking faith and bull-headedness Sasha did, he would have risked the odds that Jason’s aim wouldn’t be as good in the dark and that maybe he didn't have as much shooting experience because of his age. But Kingsley liked his head where it usually was too much to gamble like that, so he turned around and marched straight back into that god forbidden shed the second the kid motioned slightly with it. They followed so close behind him, Kingsley swore he could feel the kids’ breath through his protective gear, and he had to be thankful that this version of Jason at least knew <em>some</em> trigger discipline and clearly didn’t actually want to make spaghetti of his skull before they got meat hooks and got him squealing like a pig or whatever.</p><p>It wasn’t the best of comforting thoughts, but clearly those were being priced at the microgram in his case, and he’d take what he could get.</p><p>“Do I want to know where you got that gun?” He asked, unable to keep the acid out of his voice even though he was trying to beat the mantra: <em> They’re kids, they’re kids, they’re kids</em>, into his head.</p><p>Arri rolled her eyes like he, a grown ass adult asked her what one plus one was. Kingsley thought it was a perfectly reasonable question, but evidently neither of them thought so if he was to judge by how much harder the gun was pressed into his back.</p><p>“Where do you think?” Jason snipped, and Kingsley made an equally passive-aggressive ‘I don’t know, you tell me’ noise back.</p><p>He was totally winning at gaining these feral kids’ favor.</p><p>“It couldn’t have been legal.”</p><p>Kingsley flinched at the soft <em> click </em> that filled the shed, wondering if Jason had finally pulled the safety back and he’d snarked himself into an early grave.</p><p>But he was blinded instead as Arri held up a million-watt camping lamp up, illuminating the depressing space and consequently, scorching his eyeballs.</p><p>He didn’t want to know what his face looked like as he struggled to blink tears out of his stinging eyes, instinctively scrunching up against the offending light, but Arri’s little snicker told him more than enough. Apparently tiny little gremlin eyes didn’t need any time to adjust to the light because small hands pushed and pulled him back to that god forbidden pole in the middle of the shed and an equally depressing <em> click </em> as the hammer of a gun locked him into place again.</p><p>Kingsley made a half-hearted attempt to pull at the handcuffs, but he knew that the kids wouldn’t have messed up something so fundamental to them. Once again, he had to wonder: how many times have they done this before?</p><p>“Do you want to—” Jason started, both of their eyes fixed on him with unsettling focus.</p><p>“I don’t know,” Arri said with a shrug, “You <em> did </em> say he can’t lie for shit.”</p><p>“Hey!” Kingsley protested, despite it probably being a good idea to keep his mouth shut. He wanted to argue that he <em> was </em> decent at lying, thank you very much, but that was poking a very suspicious, very angry bear that had multiple knives into carving him open so he shut his mouth with a click.</p><p>“Come on,” he finished, lamely.</p><p>Jason and Arri exchanged glances and in the lamplight, he could see that kid Jason’s face very clearly said: See?</p><p>“You could just let me go,” Kingsley suggested, unable to keep the edge of hope out of his voice. Maybe if he sounded desperate and pathetic enough, it’d stir what empathy there was in the deep recesses of these children and they’d free him with a death threat and a small scar as a parting gift.</p><p>“Why?” Arri asked, a mean edge to her tone in that way only a ten year old could be mean—snide, snippy, and just on this side of condescending where the ‘Seriously? I’m a kid and I know better,’ was overtly implied.</p><p>“Um, because you can’t keep me here forever?”</p><p>“We never were planning on keeping you here forever,” Arri said, then to punctuate her point, “That’s just stupid.”</p><p>“Oh, ok,” Kingsley breathed out, “Good.”</p><p>Then he caught the look on their faces. One that was typically aimed towards students particularly and clumsily slow on the uptake of a subject.</p><p>“Oh.”</p><p>Kingsley saw Arri wince slightly when the lightbulb went on over his head.</p><p>“Oh no.”</p><p>“It’s a waste of resources,” Arri said, sounding almost apologetic, “We try to be as humane as possible,” she said, “It won’t hurt except for that split second. Honest.”</p><p>Kingsley, like the idiot he was, almost asked how she could guarantee that.</p><p>“Right.”</p><p>“Right.”</p><p>They stared at each other for a moment that passed like an eternity until Arri finally looked away towards Jason with a small frown on her face.</p><p>“So we’re not—” she gestured vaguely towards him.</p><p>Jason shrugged, “I mean,” he started, “There really isn’t a point to it, is there?”</p><p>Arri seemed to mull on it for a while before she gave a definitive nod, “Yeah, I guess not.”</p><p>Kingsley never felt smaller or more like he was going to shit himself when the two kids turned their full attention on him again.</p><p>“Wait wait, wait,” he protested, “You’re just going to kill me like that then? That’s it? You’ve made up your minds?”</p><p>“No, of course not,” Jason said impatiently, “We are going to ask you a few questions first.”</p><p>“Right.”</p><p>Kingsley knew he should have felt a lot more alarmed than he did and pulled some aggressive calculating to find a way to worm out of being <em> murdered</em>, but his brain had peaced out at some time around “That’s just stupid” and all he had left were dial up noises. And it looked like the kids had noticed, if the quick glance at each other meant anything at all.</p><p>Arri started with the questions while Jason continued to look at him like he was a square piece to a round puzzle he somehow had to match up to. The prickling feeling of being picked apart by those dead-man’s-eyes never disappeared, even as Kingsley had to focus on answering Arri’s chattered interrogation.</p><p>“Are you really from another dimension?”</p><p>“I think so, yes.”</p><p>“You think so?”</p><p>“I mean, nothing else would make sense.”</p><p>“What do you mean by that?”</p><p>“Didn’t Jason tell you?”</p><p>“I want to hear it from you.”</p><p>Kingsley sucked in a sharp breath and let it out slowly, because it was a wound that still smarted, “I know you and Jason in this other dimension. You’re both older, and we’re friends—best friends,” he raised his brows pointedly at the both of them, “Obviously, I’m not there anymore.”</p><p>Arri let out a considering hum and cocked her head, a jarringly familiar bird-like move. He’d always teased his Arri for the same tic, drawing parallels to the pigeons strolling around the park and cooing at them for scraps of bread.</p><p>They’d laughed that she and those stupid birds were identical in that aspect as well.</p><p>Kingsley squeezed his eyes closed hard to blink away the overlapping images of this Arri with his.</p><p>Young and jaded.</p><p>Older and laughing.</p><p>The throughline of a person in the strangest places.</p><p>“Ok, but are you <em> really </em> from another dimension?” Arri asked, snapping Kingsley out of his muddled thoughts of nostalgia, “You could’ve time traveled.”</p><p>Kingsley frowned, “I’m a dimensional traveler—a bad one at that—not a time traveler.”</p><p>“Time’s a dimension.”</p><p>An indulgent smile twitched at the corners of Kingsley’s mouth at the stubborn set of the kid’s jaw, “I don’t think that’s as plausible as you think,” he said, “I’m no expert, but I think time’s a lot more complicated than just another dimension.”</p><p>She hummed, clearly not convinced.</p><p>“And most of the time, the simplest answer is the best one,” Kingsley said, “There’s a whole theory or law or whatever around that.”</p><p>And because his Arri and Jason weren't as broken as these two kids, and there had to be some merit to that to suggest that they didn't share the same histories.</p><p>He couldn't bear it otherwise.</p><p>“Well, ok,” she dismissed, and it was onto the next subject, just like that.</p><p>“You said you weren’t working for anyone, but you are, aren’t you.”</p><p>Kingsley sighed, “Yes.”</p><p>“Are you here on their orders?”</p><p>“Yes and no.”</p><p>Arri made a questioning noise at the back of her throat.</p><p>“It’s something they suggested, but it was my choice. Only a few people know I’m, well,” the handcuffs clanked against metal and Kingsley winced at the sharp tug against his wrist as he tried to lift his hand to gesticulate an off-handed motion, the binds momentarily slipping his mind.</p><p>“So yes.”</p><p>“I—” Kingsley deflated, because this Arri was insufferably twitchy and paranoid to hell and back, “If you want to see it that way then yes, I guess.”</p><p>“So who do you work for?”</p><p>“Look, I don’t know if they exist here, but there’s an organization called F.O.I.L. in my—”</p><p>Jason finally moved from the corner of his eye.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Agent</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Kingsley sometimes forgot how <em> quick </em> Jason could be despite his effortless hulking mass and kind of ditzy clumsiness, like he misjudged his own strength sometimes despite his unparalleled brutality and economy of movement in actual fights. But Kingsley had never really gotten many opportunities to watch him fight and it was no secret that Jason and Arri trained outside of their time spent with him and Sasha. So he was much more familiar with the guy that would pout at spilled juice from the glass shattered in his hand than the ruthlessly honed battleaxe he also was.</p><p>But he was unlikely to forget it again because in the space between blinks, the kid moved from the good five feet or so distance he had on him to right over him, and planted a foot between his shoulder blades to slam him to the ground.</p><p>“<em>Fuck!</em>” Kingsley snarled as his cheek gritted across the rough surface of the concrete, fire racing down his arm and curling around his spine as his body went forwards but the cuffs kept his wrists in place.</p><p>His voice crawled up into an embarrassing whine as Jason dug his heel into the point between his shoulders, “Ow ow ow ow <em> ow, ow</em>,” he tried to twist away from the pain but it only pulled his shoulder out of place further and he hissed through his teeth, “<em>Let me up</em>.”</p><p>“FOIL,” Jason said flatly, “Haven’t heard from them in a while.”</p><p>Kingsley craned his head up with a wince and caught Arri’s eye, and he was taken aback by the way her eyes deadened. Whatever small spark of curiosity she’d held towards him had somehow been strangled out by just the mention of FOIL and whatever worth he had became nil.</p><p>He had known that Arri and Jason held no love for FOIL, back when they still talked about those things, but he had assumed it was because they bristled at organized entities like that in general, not because of anything personal. But the way the kids went from almost reluctant in their actions to looking at him like he was a roach to be crushed under their heels was a red flag of many.</p><p>“Look,” Kingsley said between measured breaths, not even bothering to try and keep the edge of pain out of his voice because he knew that Jason knew how much pain he was in in absolutes, “I don’t know what FOIL is like in <em> this </em> world, but they’re not the bad guys in mine, alright? They’re the ones helping me find my friends—they’re technically on <em> your </em> side and aside from that, I’m barely part of them, ok?”</p><p>He was starting to get a crick in his neck and Kinsley let his head drop back down onto the cold ground with a low groan.</p><p>“So <em> please </em> just let me up. I’m not here to hurt you or try anything against you, I swear.”</p><p>Jason sighed from somewhere above him.</p><p>“I’m just gonna shoot him,” Jason said, having the audacity to sound exasperated by it all, “He can’t have that much to tell us.”</p><p>There was an awfully long, pregnant pause from Arri and Kingsley felt the twisting in his gut sink lower and lower until he was sure that there was no way he was getting out of this alive. And what a dick of a situation that’d be—the first thing that actually mattered for him to not fuck up and he gets himself killed in the first five minutes.</p><p>By some kids.</p><p>Given, they were kids that had experience that none of their peers had, but it didn’t help the bruising ache in his pride because Kingsley knew he was often in over his head in <em> their </em> world, but he’d never thought it’d be to this extent.</p><p>They’d been discussing lives as loose ends since they were scab-kneed and baby faced, while he’d only shot his first gun about a year ago to the day.</p><p>Arri sighed, like it pained her to say, “We shouldn’t,” she said and that little bright flare of hope almost blinded him, “I mean, what if he’s telling the truth?”</p><p>“What if? It’s still FOIL.”</p><p>Arri paused, and Kingsley could feel the cheer squad starting up in his head going <em> Go girl go! Find me a way out of this! </em></p><p>“I mean, <em> yeah</em>, but what if FOIL in his world isn’t that bad?” She asked, “Think about it.”</p><p>The pressure between his shoulders only increased.</p><p>“We know FOIL,” Arri said, “We know how they work and their reach, and we know their agents.”</p><p>When Kingsley rolled his eyes up, her shoes—a pair of childish black and pink sneakers—wandered into his line of sight.</p><p>“He’s not like their agents,” Jason finished her sentiment, consideringly.</p><p>“Yeah!” She said, enthusiastically (oh thank god), “Like, if he has all that information about us—you know, the—”</p><p>Kingsley could imagine the little hand flap thing she always did when she needed Jason to get something that she knew he already knew and didn’t want to waste time spelling out.</p><p>“And if he really was FOIL, he’d know better than to <em> tell </em> us,” she pointed out, “Or at least with the FOIL we’ve dealt with,” she said, “They always lie to us about it at first.”</p><p>There was another considering beat from her, “We said we wouldn’t kill anyone who doesn’t deserve it.”</p><p>Jason let out a noise that was very close to a groan and he had to wonder if the kid was fucking disappointed that this wouldn’t tie up into a nice little bow with a dead body under it. But he let up and stepped off of his back, and Kingsley yelped as a small fist curled into the back of his shirt and yanked him into sitting against the pole. Which he was grateful for really, because he probably wouldn’t have managed it on his own.</p><p>He just wished that the little terror gave him some warning.</p><p>“Can we be <em> sure </em> though?” Jason asked, stepping around in a smooth motion to face him with crossed arms, “We can’t—and we can’t keep him here forever. So what do we do?”</p><p>“I mean,” Arri said with a shrug, “We could just let him go.”</p><p><em> Yes! </em> Kingsley could dance for joy. <em> Yes, my girl! My best fucking girl! </em></p><p>Jason stared at him for a long moment before he looked over at Arri, “Really?”</p><p>She gave him a ‘why not’ face.</p><p>“He’s not a good agent,” she pointed out, “And we believe him with the dimensional hopping thing, right?”</p><p>Jason gritted his teeth and handed the gun to Arri, who, much to Kingsley’s disappointment, didn’t do anything with it other than tuck it into the waistband of her jeans. Though it may have looked like the gun had gone from one unstable, paranoid child to a much more reasonable one, if Kingsley knew any Arri at all, he knew that the gun was still very much in play unless she unloaded and removed it from the immediate target.</p><p>But she wasn’t the one grumbling about the fact that there wasn’t a good and immediate reason to off him, so he’d settle for the child that apparently hadn’t had their <em> entire </em> moral backbone surgically removed just yet.</p><p>Jason advanced on Arri so quickly that Kingsley flinched for her, but she didn’t so much as blink as she tilted her head up to stare at him with a cocked brow and a ‘kick my ass, I dare you’ set to her jaw.</p><p>“But how do we know for <em> sure</em>,” he asked lowly, enough so that Kingsley knew that he wasn’t exactly meant to hear this part of their conversation, but also that Jason didn’t care whether or not Kingsley heard him in the first place because he went through no effort to hide it.</p><p>“What if he’s…” Jason made the same gesture Arri had.</p><p>“I don’t know,” Arri hissed back, “But we can’t just—”</p><p>“I <em> know</em>, don’t you think I know? But he could be—”</p><p>“We can’t do anything on <em> could be</em>—”</p><p>“But let him go? That—”</p><p>“<em>I know</em>.”</p><p>God, Kingsley wished that these kids would just finish a single sentence instead of doing that weird finishing each other's sentences thing on crack.</p><p>“Hey.”</p><p>
  <em> Oh, no no nonononono—  </em>
</p><p>What was he <em> doing</em>? Why would he call attention to himself when the kids were clearly distracted discussing whether or not he got to live?</p><p>Oh right.</p><p>Twin heads whipped around to face him and Kingsley balked slightly under their glare.</p><p>“Look,” He said carefully, “How about we just talk about it?” He asked and shrugged as they gave him identical incredulously narrowed eyes, “You can’t make up your mind, right? So why don’t you just ask me whatever you want to until you do?”</p><p>They stared at him and Kingsley could feel a slow trickle of sweat bead at the base of his skull and drip down his spine.</p><p>“It’s not like you’re getting anywhere like this.”</p><p>The kids glanced at each other and then back at him.</p><p>“Alright.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. Absurdity</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It didn’t seem like the kids ever got as far as questioning someone properly with the way they go about it. Kingsley didn’t know if that was because they always ended up killing whoever they caught before the ninth degree (horrifying) or because the others spilled easily (horrifying, in a different way), but they clearly didn’t know what they were trying to get out of him. Beyond the classic ‘who do you work for’ question they constantly reiterated, like asking him over and over would somehow trip him up into revealing something else, they had to constantly look over at each other for more ideas to press their interrogation.</p><p>He supposed it was because two kids wasn’t an intelligence agency and they probably only ever needed:</p>
<ol>
<li>Who was hunting them and</li>
<li>How many more agents were after them.</li>
</ol><p>Which was kinda sad, but Kingsley was going to scream if he had to answer the same question reworded for the fifth time. The position he was locked up in also had long since passed being just uncomfortable and he’d never needed to pee so badly in his <em> life </em>.</p><p>Of course, neither of them seemed to care when they noticed his fidgeting, much more preoccupied with snapping at each other— </p><p>“We already asked that!”</p><p>“So? Who cares? Do you have—”</p><p>“<em> No</em>, but <em> we already asked that</em>.”</p><p>—than paying attention to anything he was actually doing.</p><p>His jailers were children and Kingsley was going to die a sad, sad man.</p><p>“Oh, I know!” Arri said and jumped to her feet, making Jason twitch beside her. They’d both sat down at some point into the interrogation, because little kids' feet still got tired easily even if they were attached to absolute nightmares, and it hadn’t helped them in looking less bored with him.</p><p>She pointed a finger that went straight down his nose, “Why should we let you live?”</p><p>And because he hadn’t pulled an all-nighter since he was twenty (yay for learning time management), and the stress of the last few months was finally culminating in a hot, stuffy little shed with more than one thing that made his head spin, Kingsley very much whined,</p><p>“I don’t fucking know.”</p><p>Arri lowered her arm and they both blinked at him like <em> he </em> was the one out of left field.</p><p>“I don’t know, alright?” Kingsley snapped, “You already made up your minds and we’ve been talking in circles for the past century, so it’s not like I can say anything good enough for your tiny little brains to go ‘oh, maybe this dude’s got a point,’ so if it’s ok with you, I’d like to just get on with it and maybe go stand in that corner over there and take a piss before you shoot me in the face.”</p><p>The ‘oh shit that was stupid’ only set in after the flood of words filled the shed and Kingsley desperately wanted to cram them back into his mouth. Because yes, while this whole thing would probably only end in one way, he wanted to at least protest in the afterlife that he hadn’t actively been courting death. Somewhere in heaven, his ancestors were itching to slap him upside the head, he just <em> knew </em> it.</p><p>Then, Jason busted out laughing, and Kingsley felt a strange camaraderie in tiny demon Arri watching him, because he’s sure their expressions are the same exact degree of befuddled.</p><p>The kid’s laughing so hard he’s basically rolling on the ground and every time he tried to get his breath back to say something, he choked on it and set himself off into another spree.</p><p>“Is he having a fit?” Kingsley asked, a little more than seriously concerned for Jason’s sanity, “Do you need to go get your Nana?”</p><p>Arri looked over at him with a truly confused face and shrugged.</p><p>“I’m fine, I’m fine,” Jason wheezed to Arri as he propped himself up on his elbows and waved a hand towards their general direction, “It’s just—” he broke off to let out a noise that was reminiscent of a dog choking on a ring pop, “Maybe this dude’s got a point.”</p><p>“<em>Huh? </em>” Arri asked, eloquently.</p><p>“No, no, I just—oh god—that was <em> so bad</em>, Kevin, you didn’t even <em> try</em>!”</p><p>Kingsley winced a little at Kevin. He’d forgotten that it was the name he’d given them on the fly and it was incredibly weird being referred to as <em> Kevin</em>. Anything but Kevin.</p><p>“It’s the truth,” Kingsley said, the defiance he was aiming for landing just on this side of sheepish, “Since you guys are so big on that.”</p><p>Jason gave a conceding tilt of his head and pushed himself up to his feet, dusting off the seat of his pants as Arri narrowed her eyes at him like she too couldn’t puzzle out what his next move would be.</p><p>The kid dug around in his pants pockets for a moment before he held out a tiny silver ring with a cylindrical key attached to it, “Here,” he said, holding it out to Arri, “Wait for me to unlock the front.”</p><p>“Really?” Arri asked as she took it and glanced over at Kingsley. Her expression very much said that she had her suspicions that he had something to do with Jason’s sudden insanity, but in the hopes of all hopes that she wouldn’t convince him to change his mind, Kingsley tried to make himself as small and innocent as possible.</p><p>“Yeah,” Jason said. He unlocked the padlock and chain that was holding the doors shut, “I don’t really want to deal with a body,” he said, shoving the door open with a foot. He looked back at them, “It’s summer vacation.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. Float Ball</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Arri clearly had her own doubts as she ducked behind him and paused for a long moment where Kingsley was sure she’d stand up and tell Jason that she wasn’t going to do it after all. But the key jangled against the ring in her hand and with a small pop, his wrists were free. She didn’t spring away immediately out of reach like he would have expected a twitchy little girl to, but stared him down with an inscrutable expression as she backed away to stand by Jason.</p><p>“Uh,” Kingsley said, “Thanks?”</p><p>“Sure,” Jason said.</p><p>They all stood around—well, Kingsley was still on his ass because he wasn’t entirely sure if his legs could hold him up without stumbling just yet and he didn’t want to trip and look like even more of an idiot in front of these kids that already didn’t think much of him—and stared awkwardly at each other. If he had any doubts that they had never let someone go before him, they were completely eradicated by the fact that neither of them seemed to have a clue at what would happen next.</p><p>Jason pushed open the door a little further with the tip of his foot and the both of them stood to one side and watched him like they were wildlife conservationists releasing a trapped animal back into its habitat. They seemed more than a little perturbed when he didn’t immediately bolt a la tagged and released wolf.</p><p>“You can… go now,” Arri said, as their suspicions mounted the longer he remained immobile.</p><p>“Um,” Kingsley replied, “My foot fell asleep?”</p><p>“Oh.” Jason said, with the inflection of someone who had never experienced the horror before. And Kingsley wouldn’t have been surprised if he hadn’t—with his weird supersoldier veins and all.</p><p>Arri heaved a sigh that was bigger than her tiny frame and that was what propelled Kingsley to at least try to get to his feet because he was clearly annoying them either way. To his own surprise and delight, he only stumbled slightly and didn’t land flat on his face when he took a tentative step.</p><p>"Ok," he said as he took a test step forward, "I'm gonna go now."</p><p>"Uhuh."</p><p>He took another step forward and wished that they’d stop looking at him for a second so he could bolt out without feeling weird about it like he wanted to. And also because when he looked at their faces, his brain shut down and he made the stupidest decisions.</p><p>Like:</p><p>“Actually,” Kingsley said, and couldn’t stop himself despite the <em> shut up, shut up, shut up</em>, that the tiny, sensical percent of his brain left screamed, “Can I use your bathroom?”</p><p>They looked absolutely baffled as they turned to each other and consulted with a series of raised brows and scrunched noses.</p><p>“Um,” Arri said eventually, “I guess?”</p><p>There was another uncomfortable pause before she backed out of the shed, leaving the door wide open. Jason followed her after a beat and Kingsley couldn’t believe the amount of oppressive force that evaporated once the kids were out of sight. But he was an idiot and had to go lie in the bed of creepy children planning his early demise he built with his own hands.</p><p>Yes, he wanted to help these deeply, deeply troubled kids, but he should have grabbed the chance to retreat and collect himself with two hands instead of shoving himself deeper into the kids’ lives.</p><p>Immediate hindsight 20/20, Kingsley supposed.</p><p>It was still dark when he stepped out though it had felt like he’d spent an eternity in the stuffy little shed. Arri and Jason were waiting by the back door, the outdoor patio light illuminating and casting strange shadows on their faces. It hollowed out their sockets and contoured out the round cheeks that made them at least look like kids and Kingsley had the absurd thought that they were wraiths tricking him into surrendering his soul.</p><p>Jason cleared his throat impatiently when he stood rooted to the spot and Kingsley moved like he was possessed, helpless to be drawn to the two.</p><p>“You have to be quiet,” Jason hissed at him, opening the door at <em> just </em> the speed Kingsley knew was required to make sure it didn’t squeak on its hinges, “Nana has work in the morning.”</p><p>“She still—”</p><p>Jason’s glare dared him to say another word on the subject.</p><p>“Nevermind.”</p><p>He gave him a curt nod and led the way inside. Arri held the door open for him but Kingsley knew better than to assume rote politeness. It was probably to make sure that one of them always had an eye on him at all times, or something equally paranoid. He kind of hated that he was beginning to understand how the kids thought.</p><p>The procession down the hall made him feel like a prisoner despite the fact that the hallway was warmly lit and had kitschy paintings decorating its walls and he towered over both Arri and Jason. He’d been down the same hallway countless times, but it felt foreign to him and he felt like the intruder he was for the first time as his muffled footsteps fell across the carpet.</p><p>“Here,” Jason said, coming to a stop, “The toilet won’t flush unless you hold the little ball thing, so just don’t bother.”</p><p>But Kingsley already knew that, “No, I think I got it.”</p><p>Jason gave him a flat look, “It’ll sound like you’re trying to flush a bunch of rocks and wake Nana up, so just <em> leave </em> it.”</p><p>“It’s ok, I uh—” Kingsley cringed at how uncertain he sounded, “Something like that always happens to my toilet at home.”</p><p>“Sure,” Jason said, “Whatever. Just leave it, ok?”</p><p>“Ok,” Kingsley finally relented, and heard Arri mutter just before he closed the door:</p><p>“Weirdo.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0010"><h2>10. Interlude</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It was such a relief to at least have one thing go right—no matter how insignificant it might have been as getting to piss in a clean bathroom instead of in an alley somewhere, Jason’s warning completely slipped his mind and Kingsley fell into the familiar motion of lifting off the porcelain lid and manually flushing the literally crappy toilet Jason’s Nana’s house had. He was fourteen again and stifling giggles as Jason showed him how to correctly reach his hand into the water to shut the horrifying noise up with a single-minded determination while Arri cackled until she tripped herself and fell into the tub, taking the entire shower curtain down with her. That was the moment Kingsley had known with decided certainty that he had made the right choice talking to the weird kids in class.</p><p>“Oh right, fuck,” Kingsley muttered to himself as the toilet made a weirdly similar noise to being pulled through the fabric of space and gurgled away its contents.</p><p>“Wait what the fuck?” Came the <em> very </em> audible surprise from outside the closed door.</p><p>“How did he manage that?” Arri asked and Kingsley turned the sink on with a sigh, drowning out the rest of their conversation. They were doubtlessly discussing what threat level that weird little tidbit of knowledge he possessed put him at, and he wasn’t in the mood to hear it.</p><p>Kingsley took his time washing and drying his hands before he opened the door to face the narrowed glares of the two, feeling worse than he had about everything after the reminder of what they had been like, and what was being held away from this version of his friends.</p><p>“I did it all the time at my friend’s house,” Kingsley offered, and he watched as cautious understanding dawned on their faces.</p><p>Jason jerked his head towards the back and Arri motioned for him to follow her as Jason ducked past him into the bathroom. She walked beside him back down the hall, bouncing from one foot to the other as they moved with energy she always seemed to be filled with reserves of.</p><p>“Are we really friends?” Arri asked out of nowhere halfway to the exit.</p><p>“Well,” Kingsley said, surprised she was talking to him at all, “In my—reality, I guess—yeah.”</p><p>“Obviously in your world,” Arri said and rolled her eyes, “Close friends?”</p><p>“Yes? Why?”</p><p>“Dunno,” Arri said, “I was just thinking that you’d have to have been super close to bother with all of this.”</p><p>She yanked on the door and it swung open silently, “Your friends,” she said, halfway out the door, “They sound like liabilities.”</p><p>“<em>What</em>?” Kingsley bristled.</p><p>She ushered him out, held the door as it closed and fell in step with him again as he walked through the backyard to the front gate, “The fact that you gotta go after them makes them liabilities,” she said simply, like she wasn’t insulting the two people that gave up literally everything to save the stupid fucking world.</p><p>Arri paused and glanced at him sidelong, “They should’ve done better.”</p><p><em> You can’t punch a child </em> seemed to be his life’s mantra recently, because boy, was he tempted to throttle her a little.</p><p>“You don’t know anything about it,” Kingsley said through gritted teeth, “So don’t you <em> dare</em>—”</p><p>“You should just go home,” she cut him off, and Kingsley gaped at her as she kicked the gate open, “They’re not worth it.”</p><p>“They’re worth everything to me.”</p><p>Arri scuffed her shoe into the dirt and shook her head like she couldn’t believe how unreasonable he was being, “You’ll find other friends.”</p><p>“What if it was Jason?” Kingsley pressed, unsure why he was arguing with the kid, desperate to make her see for some reason, “Wouldn’t you do the same?”</p><p>“I wouldn’t let it happen,” Arri scoffed and turned to head back towards the house, “Bye,” she dismissed, “Make better choices, or something.”</p><p>“Tough,” Kingsley said, “You can’t lecture me, you’re a baby.”</p><p>“I could beat the shit out of you.”</p><p>Kingsley winced, “Probably.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0011"><h2>11. Nosebleeds</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Kingsley watched until Arri disappeared behind the door and the clunk of the heavy lock falling into place echoed through the still, summer night letting him know he was truly left alone. It was as good a time as any to count his blessings, but Kingsley didn’t feel <em> blessed </em> as he stood, uncomfortable, just outside the fence of his best friend’s house in the middle of the night. At least the weather was nice, he supposed—he could have been standing there in far worse conditions but truly, trying to find the silver lining in all of this was an exercise in dental surgery.</p><p>He’d come somewhat prepared—as prepared as he could be without being weighed down, which meant he had both a couple of credit cards and a good amount of cash on him, which wouldn’t have been helpful if he had landed himself on Mars somewhere. But neither he nor Sasha had thought he’d get very far in the first place. They’d made the judgement call that it was probably better to have cash on hand so he could catch a flight from wherever he ended up back over specialized equipment. It wasn’t as if he’d have that much use for things he didn’t actually know how to properly use in the first place.</p><p>That was a great idea in theory, but Kingsley found himself desperately wishing for one of those little hand-held GPS devices the other agents carried that communicated with FOIL’s own satellite system to have some clue where he could go. They probably had a wide range of other functions as well, but it was the only thing that mattered to him at the moment.</p><p>He was familiar with the neighborhood—he couldn’t <em> not </em> be, since he’d gone to school in the area and he, Arri, and Jason had all hung out in the deep nooks and crannies of the district. But he had been a child then, and the last thing he would have noticed would have been locations of motels to crash in for a couple of days. Besides, he hardly actually knew how to get around the area because he had always tagged along with his Arri and Jason back then, and they always took the strangest routes and shortcuts that never bothered to even try to toe the line of legality.</p><p>He felt like using those routes now would end pretty badly for him.</p><p>So he’d have to find a bus that could take him somewhere that was less residential and maybe had an inn or something open somewhere. But he couldn’t remember which direction the closest bus stop was, and he was hardly eager to pick a direction and start walking when every little noise in the dark made him jump like a rabbit on crack.</p><p>And he was <em> tired</em>.</p><p>Props to his adrenaline system for keeping him awake and alive while the tiny piranhas circled him like he was a chicken on a string, but Kingsley could feel the crash coming hard and fast. It didn’t help that any kind of attempted jump typically drained him, and he’d just pulled off the mother of all jumps. He had never understood how Arri and Jason could just brush off the side effects their abilities had on their bodies when they liberally abused them far more often than he did, and it didn’t seem like he was about to start now.</p><p>All he wanted was a hot shower, dinner, and a semi-soft place to curl up and go comatose for the next few days.</p><p>Kingsley could feel that the longer he stayed upright, the more his brain mushed up.</p><p>He’d later blame the fact that his brain had the consistency of banana pudding and about as many functional, firing neurons for his next stroke of genius. If he couldn’t get a hot shower and a soft place to sleep, he’d settle for a roof over his head, and the only place he knew was readily accessible was just beyond the iron gates.</p><p>The <em> unlocked </em> iron gates.</p><p>For as long as he’d known them, Jason and his Nana had always kept the gate closed under lock and key. He couldn’t be sure if they’d add another layer of paranoia to their livelihoods later on, or if Arri had simply forgotten to latch the gate, but he could just very easily give a small, tiny little <em> push </em> and—</p><p>Kingsley walked through the front gate like a man possessed and headed straight for the shed with its door hanging slightly ajar. He wedged his bulk between the gap of the door and its frame, trying his best not to disturb it out of place because with his luck, the little hellions would come crawling out a little later and notice any little thing out of place in their radius of iniquity. He slipped inside with bated breath as he waited for the tell-tale swoosh of the back door being pushed open, but nothing interrupted the soft chirp of the summertime crickets and no warning shot before the killshot came. Despite that, he still stood in place, tense, for another long moment before Kingsley finally allowed himself to unfurl and step deeper into the shed, tucking himself in the furthest corner where he hoped he’d be less noticeable at a passing glance. It wouldn’t make a difference, because the shed was too small to have any kind of cover from being seen if someone was standing in the doorway but still, it made him feel a little better.</p><p>Moving through molasses, Kingsley stripped off his sweater and balled it up before he curled up onto the hard ground and tucked both his arm and sweater under his head and promptly passed out before he could blink twice.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0012"><h2>12. Decorum</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Kingsley had only meant to take a quick nap and be gone before the sun crested over the horizon, but seeing as he typically needed help waking up with several alarms even when he was fully well-rested, that plan was an impossibly optimistic one. He probably would have slept straight through to the next day, had it not been for the sharp rapping that echoed through the shed.</p><p>“Whassa?”</p><p>Kingsley instinctively curled away from the square of light that the doorway let it—the <em> open </em> doorway.</p><p>He scrambled to his feet and held his arms out blindly in front of him in a pose he knew looked ridiculous and felt ridiculous because he didn’t have a proper weapon in the first place, and what the hell was he going to do still blinking sleep out of his eyes and half staggering from exhaustion?</p><p>“Have you been out here all night?”</p><p>Kingsley squinted into the light and suppressed a groan when he saw who it was.</p><p>“No?” He lied, feeling about as mature as he had been at thirteen when he’d looked the same woman in the eyes and told her, “No ma’am, the gate just fell over on its own like that.”</p><p>She had just laughed back then and made all three of them fix it, because she knew it was their fault, but that they’d make it impossible to pinpoint the exact culprit.</p><p>He was pretty sure she wouldn’t be laughing this time.</p><p>Jason’s Nana hummed quietly with a heavy note of disbelief and disapproval and Kingsley cringed at her response.</p><p>“Do you have nowhere to go, young man?” Jason’s Nana asked politely, if a little cooly.</p><p>“Um—no, I do, sorry,” Kingsley stuttered out, “I just—I didn’t know the neighborhood? And trying to find a motel in the dark kind of freaked me out, so,” he waved vaguely to the shed, “I borrowed this. I’m sorry.”</p><p>Jason’s Nana was silent for long enough for Kingsley to worry if she was telepathically communicating with Jason or was about to pull a gun on him as well or something. But she just stepped aside and beckoned him outside.</p><p>“Why don’t you go inside?” She asked, and Kingsley felt his jaw hit the floor.</p><p>“Like,” Kingsley said, “Inside, inside? Inside the house?”</p><p>Jason’s Nana arched a brow as if to say ‘where else?’</p><p>“Are you…” Kingsley said, poised to dart past her and run like the devil himself was on his heels if anything about her seemed off, “Are you trying to lure me inside to kill me or whatever?”</p><p>The older woman laughed and backed away from the shed, prompting Kingsley to slowly follow in her lead, taking one unconscious step after the other until he was blinking in the pre-afternoon sun.</p><p>“It does seem like it, doesn’t it?” Jason’s Nana said, almost sounding apologetic, but too amused to make it land exactly, “But no,” she said, “The kids told me a lot about you this morning,” she continued, “There were a couple of things that came up that made me think you aren’t really a bad person,” she nodded towards the shed, “Just someone stuck in some bad circumstances.”</p><p>“And this means, what,” Kingsley said, narrowing his eyes, “I get a free pass and you’re just gonna let me wander around your house scott free?”</p><p>The Nana he knew was fiercely protective over Jason and Arri and didn’t leave anything to chance which was necessary, given the nature of the kids and their tendency to get themselves into situations fully trained agents would balk at. Maybe in this dimension, the woman was much more lax, which would explain the obsessive paranoia of the two kids because they didn’t have a reliable adult figure to lean on. It was a miserable thought, but one that explained a <em> lot </em>.</p><p>“You look like you could use all the help you can get,” Jason’s Nana said in a tone that brokered no room for argument, “And the kids trust you enough to let you go, so let’s just say that’s your character reference and call it a day.”</p><p>“And you trust me cause what, Jason and Arri decided to be a little altruistic last night and that’s good enough for you?”</p><p>“Those kids don’t do altruism,” Jason’s Nana said, “It’s reason enough for me.”</p><p>“That doesn’t <em> mean </em> anything,” Kingsley protested, “They’re just kids—I’ve made stupid ass decisions when I was their age left and right. Like, no offense to them, but they don’t have the cognitive development to make those kinds of judgement calls.”</p><p>“And you’re building a better case for yourself,” Jason’s Nana said, but it wasn’t said in the scathing sarcasm Kingsley was expecting. It was as if she was actually saying he <em> was </em> building a better case for himself.</p><p>“Huh?”</p><p>She shook her head, “I’ve worked with enough people who struggle with what they’ve got to know that you’re going to be feeling pretty bad for the next few days.”</p><p>She saw Kingsley’s eyes automatically dart over towards the house and laughed, “No, not them,” she said, “Others,” the woman made a see-sawing motion with her hand, “People under more—<em>normal</em>—circumstances.”</p><p>“There technically are places you can go to stay, but they’re pretty far from here and you’ll never find your way without a proper map.”</p><p>Jason’s Nana pushed up her sleeve to check her wristwatch, “I’d offer to drive you, but I’m late as it is.” A half-smile graced her face, “I need you to make up your mind now, if you want me to let you in.”</p><p>Although Kingsley was still bristling over how cavalier the older woman was with the childrens’ safety—because <em> no</em>, the decisions of kids didn’t mean jack shit when it came to something as important as their security—he knew she was probably right on all accounts that it’d be a nightmare for him to find somewhere to crash and inhale as many calories as he could find for the next few days. It wasn’t as if he could pull up google maps on his phone and trust it to get him to where he needed to be.</p><p>And besides, alternate dimension weirdo versions of the people he knew or not, Kingsley doubted that any version of them actually had the capacity to be straight up evil. He most likely wouldn’t be walking into a Saw trap scenario.</p><p>“Okay,” Kingsley decided, “Um, thank you.”</p><p>“Of course,” Jason’s Nana said and turned with the confidence of someone accustomed to being followed and led the way to the front of the house this time and worked her way through the multiple locks that bolted the door shut.</p><p>“Damn,” Kingsley couldn’t help but mutter as the final, and <em> fifth </em> lock clicked open and the woman pulled open the door.</p><p>“We don’t take security lightly around here,” she said with an amused glint in her eyes, “Get inside,” she said, “I’ll lock up behind you.”</p><p>Kingsley took one hesitant step after the other into the front hallway and turned to meet her gaze, “Thank you. Again.”</p><p>Jason’s Nana just gave him another one of those enigmatic half-smiles and closed the door.</p><p>He waited until he saw and heard all the locks turned to be engaged again before he shook himself out and headed down the short hallway that opened almost immediately into the living room on his right, with the shuttered and closed kitchen on his left. If he had felt like an intruder the night before, Kingsley felt like he was straight up stepping on consecrated ground as he walked into the living room. But despite his reservations, he could feel the second wave of exhaustion threatening to overtake him and it was aggressively competing with his stomach complaining at maximum volume, so he was more than ready to crash on any soft surface available.</p><p>Kingsley knew there was a guest bedroom all the way down the hall near the back entrance, but he had to assume that Arri was posted there for the time being, seeing as she hadn’t left Jason’s house the previous night and he hadn’t been given explicit permission to take over their guest bedroom anyways. If memory served him right, Kingsley knew that Jason’s sofa was the lumpiest and most uncomfortable piece of shit that ever graced his poor lumbar system, but it was better than a concrete floor.</p><p>The television had been left on in the living room and Kingsley saw exactly why when he made his way around the sofa. Kid Arri and Jason had pulled off the cushions from the paisley green and yellow sofa and adjacent couch and were sprawled across them and on top of each other with a blanket haphazardly thrown over the two. Arri was making like a contortionist and Kingsley wasn’t sure where her limbs were supposed to go exactly, but he was sure they weren’t supposed to go like <em> that</em>. He couldn’t see her head either, and he had to assume that she was being slowly suffocated by the fleece throw.</p><p>Jason was sleeping like a much more normal person with half his face stuffed into the cushion, but his other eye had snapped open and glared up at Kingsley the second he’d stepped into the room. The kid didn’t make any attempts to move and there was a haze of sleep filming his otherwise steady glower, but Kingsley raised his hands in surrender nonetheless.</p><p>“Your Nana let me in,” Kingsley whispered. Jason blinked once at him, closed his eye, and didn’t reopen it.</p><p>“Oh, ok,” Kingsley said under his breath. </p><p>There were two bowls abandoned by the kids and Kingsley approached to pick them up, because his mom raised him right and the least he could do when he was relying on someone’s hospitality was to do the dishes. He half expected Jason to snap up and grab at him, snarling like some kind of jump scare in a zombie game, but the kid stayed passed right out, even as ceramic clinked as Kingsley stacked the bowls.</p><p>“Judge Judy, really?” Kingsley asked the two prone figures as he unbent with a low groan, “Can’t you guys just watch morning cartoons like every other kid? Jesus.”</p><p>No reply came and Kingsley rolled his eyes. As cute as they were in their weird little puppy pile, this Arri and Jason were unsurprisingly alien and extra as hell in this aspect of their lives as well.</p><p>The kitchen was exactly as he remembered it and it was easy to find where everything was as he rinsed the bowls and put them in the dishwasher to run. The kids had apparently had a normal breakfast of cereal and Kingsley wasn’t sure why he was so surprised. It wasn’t as if they’d eat raw chicken livers and cow gizzards or something, but after being faced with them as a prisoner, it was a dissonance, to say the least. But they did bring up a good point.</p><p>Feeling nothing but sheepish guilt at taking without asking, Kingsley brought down a bowl for himself and helped himself to a heaping serving of cavity-inducing cereal with the last of the milk in the fridge. He hadn’t had cereal that sweet since he’d turned nine, but Kingsley nearly inhaled it fast enough not to notice or need a chaser of coffee afterwards. It definitely didn’t hit the spot fully, but it was enough to shut his stomach up so he could pass out and worry about eating everything in sight later.</p><p>The polite thing to do would have been to crash on the couch, but seeing as the antique lumps had been literally stripped down to its slats, Kingsley made a bee-line for the guest bedroom, profusely thanking the kids’ napping habits in sparing him from waking up with knots in his back he’d have to name with how long they’d stick around.</p><p>He was out like a light the second he toed off his shoes and his head hit the pillow.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0013"><h2>13. Hot Dog</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Shh! You’ll wake him up!”</p><p>“Isn’t that the point?” Came the dry reply, “Aren’t we trying to wake him up?”</p><p>“Yes? No? I don’t know—but don’t you think he’d get mad if we wake him up?”</p><p>“Who cares?”</p><p>“I guess,” a pause, “I’d murder anyone that wakes me up, so maybe we should just wait.”</p><p>“No one can murder you.”</p><p>“But he can try!”</p><p>“I’m not gonna murder anyone,” Kingsley mumbled into the pillow, feeling murderous.</p><p>“So you <em> say</em>.”</p><p>Jason scoffed and Kingsley opened his eyes in time to catch him rolling his eyes.</p><p>"Good, you're awake," He continued, "We have a favor to ask you."</p><p>"Oh god," Kingsley muttered and turned his head to bury his face into the pillow for a moment, before he rolled over to stare at the kids looking intently down at him.</p><p>"What?" He asked, blearily, "What time is it?"</p><p>"Four o' five," Jason said curtly, “We’re hungry.”</p><p>“Oh,” Kingsley said, “Ok,” his eyes drifted across the room like he was looking for someone else they could be telling this to—someone that could actually do something about it, “Same?”</p><p>“Good,” Arri said, “Then we’re being less rude,” she paused, “Kinda.”</p><p>“Oh.” He sat up, “What?”</p><p>“We're not allowed to use the stove," Jason said, like that explained everything, "And we're hungry."</p><p>"Ok?" Kingsley said, "What do you usually eat?"</p><p>"Cereal," Arri said, "But you finished the milk."</p><p>"Oh," Kingsley said, "Right. I'm sorry."</p><p>"That's ok," she said, "But can you make us something to eat? We're starving and everything in the fridge needs to be cooked."</p><p>"Why aren't you allowed to use the stove?" Kingsley asked. He supposed that they were at the age where such a ban was reasonable, but these were kids that regularly handled firearms without harming themselves—at least he <em> thought </em> they at least didn't harm themselves—and an exception could probably be made.</p><p>"We tried to make this explosive gel and melted through a pot," Arri said, apparently either unconscious or unbothered by the horrified twist to his face.</p><p>"Nana freaked," Jason said, sounding quite put out, "And we were banned from touching the burners unless she's home."</p><p>"Ok, so what do you want me to do?" Kingsley asked, "Do you want me to go out and buy you guys something to eat or something?"</p><p>He hesitated, "I don't really know the area though."</p><p>"No, we were thinking," Arri said in a slow drawl, "<em>You're </em> not banned from the stove soo." She made a vague gesture with her hands, "Can you make us something? Please?"</p><p>“Well,” an unbidden grin crept across his face because in the moment, the two kids looked more like a pair of puppies making sad eyes at him for table scraps, “Since you said please.”</p><p>Besides, he <em> really </em> could eat as well, and he’d feel a little less guilty eating food from their nana’s fridge if he fed her little demons as well.</p><p>“Okay,” he groaned and rolled out of the bed, feeling every year of his age and more as his joints creaked in protest, “Uh, what do you want to eat?”</p><p>He followed the kids to the kitchen and Arri threw the fridge door open and stood in front of it with her hands on her hips, “I don’t know,” she finally concluded.</p><p>Kingsley looked over at Jason and he shrugged in response, “I don’t care.”</p><p>“Great,” he muttered under his breath. So that little infuriating habit had started early and was apparently consistent across dimensions, Jesus.</p><p>“Ok, let’s see,” he said, taking Arri’s place in front of the fridge. It was surprisingly well stocked, though Kingsley didn’t know what he had been expecting. A little less fresh food, perhaps. For the entirety of the time they roomed together, their fridge had consistently been stocked with nothing more than a couple of slices of cheese and maybe a can of seltzer if he’d gotten sick in the past week or something.</p><p>And honestly, there were more ingredients than he knew what to do with.</p><p>“How about hot dogs?” Kingsley asked, because it was the first thing he saw he knew how to cook properly.</p><p>“We don’t have hot dog bread,” Jason said.</p><p>“We can just put the sausages on white bread.”</p><p>The kids looked at him like he had unraveled DaVinci’s code in front of them.</p><p>“Hot dogs it is,” Kingsley decided.</p><p>It was a little funny cooking with the two, because they both just barely cleared the counter and stared at the pan with rapt expressions like the answers to life and the universe itself were held in the spattering of hot dogs fried in a pan.</p><p>“How many are you guys gonna eat?” Kingsley asked, turning slightly to them, the oddity of the situation ringing through him as they both locked eyes with him.</p><p>“Four,” came the synchronized reply, and Kingsley needed to stop letting every little thing surprise him, because he’d burn out and accept every whack thing they did as normal. Even if he himself could probably only just barely stomach four despite how hungry he was and the two of them put together didn’t make up two thirds of his mass.</p><p>“Well, that explains the family pack,” Kingsley mused and added more sausages to the pan, “Wanna toast some bread?”</p><p>He handed the loaf over to Jason when he nodded and let him at it without supervision because while the kid could probably build a bomb or something out of the toaster if he really wanted to, he was certain that the desire for toasted bread would win out over destroying and setting said toaster on fire. Thankfully, hot dogs were a quick and dirty meal and served him well when faced with ravenous hyenas he was definitely buying the trust of, and they each had their individual plates in under fifteen minutes.</p><p>Kingsley half expected the kids to run over with their plates to the TV set because that had been what he and his siblings had always done whenever they had any meals unsupervised by adults, but they surprisingly politely walked their food over to the dining table and sat down, then <em> waited </em> for him.</p><p>This, more than anything made him feel like he’d drifted into the Twilight Zone.</p><p>“Want anything on them?” Kingsley asked, opening the fridge again. He felt the back of his neck prickle as two sets of eyes blinked owlishly at him, “It looks like you have ketchup, mustard, uh,” he pulled out a bottle and squinted, “Ranch?”</p><p>“No thank you,” Jason said, and Kingsley had to peek over the fridge door to see if the kid was bleeding out of the ears or something. Not even near death experiences could beat manners into Jason, but apparently food could.</p><p>“You guys can start without me, you know,” Kingsley said, now just feeling awkward holding them up. They were all but salivating at the slap-dash meal.</p><p>“No one eats until everyone is at the table,” Jason clearly recited.</p><p>Kingsley let out an ‘ah,’ of tentative acknowledgement and grabbed the bottle of ketchup, not bothering to investigate the contents of the fridge further for anything else, since they'd seemed about ready to gnaw off their own arms earlier. Their nana really did have them trained in the weirdest ways.</p><p>“Alright, have at it,” Kingsley said as he sat down, and they were on the sandwiches, scarfing them down before he even got to picking his own up. Now he knew their nana wasn’t starving them, but the way they acted would have made him think otherwise. Though if he was being honest with himself, if he could unhinge his jaws like they somehow managed to, he’d probably swallow the hot dogs at the same rate.</p><p>So, he minded his own business and tucked into a plate of the best shitty hot dogs he had ever had in his entire life.</p>
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